Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbø Read Free Book Online

sticky, stinking midge oil which could well have been napalm. Plus two unmarked bottles with cork stoppers containing a bright stinking liquid which was definitely napalm. The morning had brought no respite from the relentless sun, as well as a wind that whistled in the stovepipe. The shadows of tiny clouds slid across the desolate, monotonous, rolling landscape like flocks of reindeer, momentarily colouring the pale green stretches of vegetation a darker shade, swallowing the reflections from the small pools in the distance and the shimmer of the minute crystals where the rocks lay bare. Like a sudden deep bass note in an otherwise bright song. Either way, it was still in a minor key.
    â€˜Mum says you’re very welcome to join our congregation in the prayer house,’ the boy said. He was sitting opposite me at the table.
    â€˜Really?’ I said, running my hand over one of the bottles. I’d put the cork back in without tasting it. Foreplay. You had to drag it out, that made it even better. Or worse.
    â€˜She thinks you can be saved.’
    â€˜But you don’t?’
    â€˜I don’t think you want to be saved.’
    I stood up and went over to the window. The reindeer buck was back. When I saw it earlier that morning I realised that I felt relieved. Wolves. They’d been wiped out in Norway, hadn’t they?
    â€˜My grandfather drew churches,’ I said. ‘He used to be an architect. But he didn’t believe in God. He said that when we died, we died. I’m more inclined to believe that.’
    â€˜He didn’t believe in Jesus either?’
    â€˜If he didn’t believe in God, he was hardly going to believe in his son, Knut.’
    â€˜I get it.’
    â€˜You get it. So?’
    â€˜So he’ll burn in hell.’
    â€˜Hmmmm. In that case he’s been burning for a while, because he died when I was nineteen. Don’t you think that’s a bit unfair? Basse was a good man, he gave a helping hand to people who needed it, which is more than you can say about a lot of Christians I’ve known. If I could be half as good a man as my grandfather . . .’
    I blinked. My eyes were stinging and I could see little white dots floating in front of them. Was all this sunlight burning holes in my retinas, was I going snow-blind now, in the middle of the summer?
    â€˜Grandpa says doing good deeds doesn’t help, Ulf. Your grandfather’s burning now, and soon it’ll be your turn.’
    â€˜Hmm. But you’re saying that if I go to the meeting and say yes to Jesus and this Læstadius, I’ll get to paradise even if I do sod all to help anyone else?’
    The boy scratched his red hair. ‘Yeees. Well, if you say yes to the Lyngen branch.’
    â€˜There’s more than one branch?’
    â€˜There are the Firstborns in Alta, and the Lundbergians in South Tromsø, and the Old Læstadians in America, and—’
    â€˜And they’re all going to burn?’
    â€˜Grandpa says they will.’
    â€˜Sounds like there’s going to be plenty of room in paradise. Have you thought about what would happen if you and I had switched grandfathers? Then you’d have been an atheist and me a Læstadian. And then you’d be the one who’d burn in hell.’
    â€˜Maybe. But fortunately you’re the one who’s going to burn, Ulf.’
    I sighed. There was something so settled about the landscape here. As if nothing was going to happen, or could ever happen, as if lack of change was its natural state.
    â€˜Ulf?’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Do you miss your father?’
    â€˜No.’
    Knut stopped. ‘Wasn’t he nice?’
    â€˜I think he was. But we’re good at forgetting when we’re children.’
    â€˜Is that allowed?’ he asked in a quiet voice. ‘Not missing your father?’
    I looked at him. ‘I think so,’ I yawned. My shoulder ached. I needed a drink.
    â€˜Are